Hundreds evacuated after volcano in Iceland suddenly erupts
21st March 2010

 

Hundreds of people were forced to evacuate after a volcano erupted in the south of Iceland overnight. Flights had to be diverted after authorities declared a local state of emergency. The eruption began shortly before midnight when the Eyjafjallajokull glacier, the island's fifth largest, started to spew smoke and lava from several craters along a rift which is popular with hikers.

 

 

Police declared a local state of emergency and dispatched rescue teams to evacuate about 500 people living in the thinly populated area near the eruption site, but no injuries or damage to property was reported. Three Red Cross care centres were also opened in nearby villages to assist the evacuated population. 'The evacuations have gone smoothly,' said local police chief Kjartan Thorkelsson, adding there was no indication the volcano presented any immediate danger to people. The volcano spewed lava and threw up a plume of smoke about one kilometre high, but there was little threat of flooding unless the eruption grew in scope and began to melt large amounts of ice on the glacier, police said. International flights were diverted away from the island and other flights were cancelled due to the risk that possible clouds of ash could interfere with navigation, they said. Scientists in Iceland had been monitoring the Eyjafjallajokull glacier, which has been dormant since 1821, for signs of seismic activity but said there had been little warning of an eruption. 'There was little increased seismic activity prior to the eruption but we did note a few tremors around 2 on the Richter scale - not enough to tell us that an eruption was about to start,' Geophysicist Steinunn Jakobsdotter said.

Some 1,300 travellers were stranded in airports in Iceland and abroad, the Civil Authority said, adding all flights were expected to start taking off later in the day. Iceland sits on a volcanic hotspot in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and has relatively frequent eruptions, although most occur in sparsely populated areas and pose little danger to people or property. The last eruption took place in 2004.
There have been 21 eruptions in Iceland since 1963, but the only one to cause any damage took place in 1973 in the Westmann Islands and caused no casualties.




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